Finance Ministry has demanded that Foundation Tallinn 2011 - the organizer of last year's European Capital of Culture festivities - repay 12,000 euros that was paid to a company called Midfield for foreign language video advertisements.
In 2010, Enterprise Estonia allocated 100,000 euros to the foundation for international marketing. One condition was that the funds be spent within a year's time.
But in an audit, the Finance Ministry discovered that, although contracts with Midfield were sealed in the correct time-frame, some of the advertisements were produced before the grant became available, reported Eesti Päevaleht.
“Midfield mistakenly started some of its activities earlier because we wanted to make sure that the invoice for the service be presented correctly,” said Jaanus Mutli, a board member of the foundation. “And I guess our goal was to get as much funding as possible and we got ahead of ourselves.”
Midfield also made headlines last week, when the parliamentary Committee on Monitoring the Funding of Political Parties said it was investigating the company, which has for years provided services to the Centre Party in election campaigns, for the reason that it has won a suspicious amount of tenders called by the City of Tallinn.
The Centre Party, which rules the City of Tallinn, owes Midfield around 400,000 euros.
Ott Tammik
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